The coolest iPad apps of today

It’s time to dress your iPad up with something other than Gmail and Pandora. Try some of these games, creativity sparkers, and productivity helpers instead. You’re going to wonder what you did on your iPad before you downloaded these!
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Animoog

Price: $19.99

Animoog has been lauded as one of the best music synthesizers for the iPad. Its X/Y interface is jam-packed with filters, timbres, and preset sounds to turn even an amateur mixer into a pro.
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Pocket Universe

Price: $2.99

Pocket Universe reaches its full potential on the iPad. Hold your device up to the night sky, and the app will use the built-in compass to show the same view with the names of the stars and constellations you’re seeing. Pocket Universe will also alert you to can’t-miss stargazing events and send along observation tips. If you’re in the mood to blast past what you can see from Earth, try out the app’s virtual tour of the solar system.
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StoryPress

Price: Free

Whether you’re recording your own story or someone else’s, StoryPress is a beautiful way to do it. The app isn’t about writing as much as recording, and can give you interview questions to help you tell the story if you’re at a loss for words. The app comes with five free books, which you can keep for yourself or upload to StoryPress.com to share with others.

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Instapaper

Price: $4

Instapaper saves articles from around the Web and then strips them down, so when you click on one of your saved stories in the app, all you see is the text and images. Leave behind all of the ads, navigation, and social networking buttons and just focus on the story. The app also helps you discover new content based on friends’ recommendations.
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Haiku Deck

Price: Free

Like a haiku poem itself, Haiku Deck sticks to the essentials. The slideshow creation app lets you drag in photos from its Creative Commons licensed database or from your Facebook, iPhoto, Dropbox, or Instagram accounts. It features a number of background themes, charts, and text options to quickly make sharp presentations. You can also add in private notes to yourself that show up in Teleprompter mode when you hook your iPad up to a projector—the audience sees your brilliant work, and you never miss a piece of information.

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Adobe Photoshop Touch

Price: $9.99

Photoshop for ten bucks? Yes, you read that right. The app comes with a variety of the usual Photoshop features, like layers and filter tools, as well as some iPad specific tools like “camera fill,” which lets you fill in areas using exactly what your camera sees. You can also access tutorials, galleries, and the Adobe Creative Cloud to automatically sync creations to your desktop. It’s the perfect app for photographers on the go.
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Delicion

Price: Free

Whether you’re a self-professed health nut or have a hard time finding gluten-free meals, Delicion could soon become your new favorite app. The digital cookbook’s recipes are already gluten, grain, and soy free, and you can customize most of them to also be vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free, and more. Each recipe comes with photos and notes from a dietician to help you pick the perfect meal.
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Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Price: $9.99

The much-loved videogame Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic comes to the iPad, and it’s just as epic. Players’ decisions will earn them Light Side and Dark Side points, which in turn have quite an effect on what happens in the game. It focuses on story and actual role play, not necessarily the blockbuster smackdowns in many of today’s games, making for a refreshing change from the norm. And while the transition to iPad isn’t seamless, it’s a must-play game for old fans and new converts alike.
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News360

Price: Free

News360 figures out what kind of news stories you’re most interested in based on how you interact with the app and your social media feeds. It’ll combine photos, articles, and video from a variety of sources to give you as much information as possible and throw each of your interests into a single stream for easy navigation.
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Heart Writer

Price: $1.99

When it comes to taking notes, the last things you need are distractions like the Internet or menu bars. Heart Writer’s shortcuts let you type and delete words on a de-cluttered page in just one swipe. You can preset your shortcuts and then send your documents to Dropbox or Google Docs for cleaning up.
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OmniFocus

Price: $39.99

OmniFocus is pricey, but it’s everything you need to stay completely organized. The app lets your organize and breakdown tasks and even set up reminders to complete them when you reach certain locations. View tasks, appointments, and projects on one screen, and categorize everything by energy level or priority. Whatever works, right?
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Discovr

Price: $4.99

Music gets visual with Discovr, an app similar to Pandora that helps you find new artists to follow. Type in the name of a group you already like, and Discovr will create a graph that shows you related artists. Subsequent taps will generate an interconnected web of options, making it easier than ever to find the perfect song for your mood.
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Galcon Fusion

Price: $1.99

Galcon Fusion is like the book Ender’s Game come to life. The conquer-the-universe strategy game comes with eight single-player games and the option to play in real time with people from all over the world. You can fight AI opponents in a variety of difficulty levels, and the graphics are perfectly optimized for the iPad. It’s an adventure you won’t soon forget.
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Penultimate

Price: Free

Penultimate turns your iPad into a digital notebook. The app lets you draw and write on three different types of pre-loaded “paper” or photos that you upload. The app is able to detect what’s a word and what’s just your wrist pressing the screen, preventing stray marks from popping up. A search feature allows you to comb through your handwritten words, and if you have Evernote, all of your notes are automatically synced to your account for easier organization.
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Morning

Price: $2.99

If you can’t afford a personal assistant but desperately need one to help you oganize your life, look no further than Morning. The app fills your screen with vital info, like the weather, time, reminders, calendars, news, and even how much traffic you’ll be up against that day. All of these features and more show up in eight custmizable panels to brief you on your upcoming day.
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AccuWeather

Price: Free

AccuWeather is stylish, intuitive, and packed with features, reviewers say. The app pushes severe weather notifications, provides hourly and 15-day forecasts, and shows radar and lifestyle forecasts to help you figure out how the weather might impact your daily run or outdoor party.
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Comics by ComiXology

Price: Free

ComiXology brings its 30,0000-plus titles to the iPad in a brand new comic and graphic novel reading experience. Comics is one of the best digital reading apps on the market, and while it’s available on the iPhone as well, Comics shines on the iPad’s larger screen.
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